Interpolation (literature)
Interpolation (from Latin interpolatio , to interpolare, “reorganize, falsify, distort”) is a technical term used in philological textual criticism and denotes the extension of this text through words, sentences or sections from another hand that are not part of the original text or Text belonging to the template.
The author of this change is called the interpolator and the interpolated (inserted) text itself, as well as the process of insertion, is called interpolation.
Interpolations can arise through oversight or negligence in that explanatory additions such as marginal or interlinear glosses are taken over into the text when copied and no longer remain recognizable as additions. Or they are created through targeted processing of the given text. The intention can be to make the text easier to understand for the current reception or to expand it. Such an extension can either tie in with existing statements and expand the text in this way and update it - or it can serve the purpose of falsification.
The tasks of the philological text criticism include clarifying the tradition and restoring a version that comes as close as possible to the original. Critical analysis of language, style and content can reveal interpolations. A comparison with the other text witnesses , if any, or with other sources that could prove a suspicious text passage as a subsequent addition also serves this purpose .
Since there was no specific legal protection of intellectual property in antiquity and for a long time afterwards , revised texts, the changes of which were mostly not externally identified, could be misinterpreted as the creation of the author of the original work, whereby the author of the changes remained hidden. This was of great importance for the very late onset of interpolation research on Roman legal sources .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Max Kaser : Roman legal sources and applied legal method (= research on Roman law. Volume 36). Verlag Böhlau, Vienna / Cologne / Graz 1986, ISBN 3-205-05001-0 , p. 112 ff. (Reference to pre-Justinian and Justinian interpolations).
- ^ Franz Wieacker : Text criticism and factual research. Positions in contemporary Romance studies. In: Journal of the Savigny Foundation for Legal History . Romance Department. Volume 91, 1974, pp. 1-40 ( online ).